Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Continuing on with questions on 8-27, I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one quick follow-up on that. I suppose the biggest recommendation to come out of the exercise from the 16th to me was the realization that we really

want everybody to have other coverage and that that could be tapped into to help protect our resources.

What proportion of the NWT residents have additional coverage and what are we doing to make sure that those that don’t somehow get it to the extent that that’s possible? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Based on numbers that we’ve had in the past, we know that it is estimated that about 10 percent of NWT residents have no access to supplementary health benefit coverage. So that means the rest – 90 percent – have coverage of some capacity, whether it’s through private insurance, extended health benefits, NIHB, but about 10 percent don’t have this type of coverage.

Thank you. Is territorial coverage, GNWT coverage, included in the 90 percent?

Yes.

So I guess what we want to see is those residents get additional coverage that will help protect the territorial resources.

Mr. Bromley, I’ll get you to rephrase that question a little differently. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My understanding was we wanted to make sure that people had additional supplementary benefits and health benefits coverage beyond the territorial GNWT coverage in order to protect GNWT resources, essentially third-party, and that we were going to promote that. That’s the statistic that I’m looking for.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley, for doing that. Minister Abernethy.

So, just so I’m clear, what you’re asking is: How many residents of the Northwest Territories do not have third-party employer-provided types of insurance or other supplementary insurances like NIHB? Am I correct?

That’s correct.

I don’t believe we have that detail. I do remember in the last government when the supplementary health debate occurred in the House, there was some recognition by the department that we would find ways to encourage people to obtain some sort of third-party insurance, whether it’s through employers or other things. I’m not currently aware of the status of that, but I will talk to the department, I will get an update and I’ll provide that to committee.

To me, again, that was the biggest recommendation that came out of all the work on this in the 16th Assembly, so I’m surprised

that it’s not higher on the agenda here, because I don’t think there’s much cost to that but the benefits are potentially substantial. I appreciate the Minister committing himself to look into it and I hope that it gets some action as well as looking into it. Thank you.

I’ve committed to having the department look at this and we’ll get back to the Members with some additional detail.

Okay, committee, we are on 8-27, activity summary, supplementary health programs, operations expenditure summary, $27.3 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Committee, 8-28, activity summary, supplementary health programs, grants and contributions, $16.829 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you. Committee, 8-31. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have two questions here and I mentioned it in my general comments, opening comments on this department and I don’t think I got an answer from the Minister. I’m not surprised; there were lots of comments for him to respond to. But I did want to know, I did want to get an update on the efforts to establish child and family service committees. I know the department worked very hard on it over the last two years or so and I know they were struggling to get any kind of uptake from communities. I would like to know from the Minister, do we still have somebody that’s working on establishing those committees or is it something that has fallen by the wayside and maybe try a different tack at a different time. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This was an issue that came up in the 16th Assembly and I think additional money was put in so that it established committees throughout the Northwest Territories. I know the department has been eager to establish these starting late in the 16th Assembly and certainly into the beginning of

the 17th Assembly, but at the end of the day we

don’t have any and there seems to be very little interest or uptake at the community level.

In principle, by intent, the reason these committees were put into the act is absolutely sound, but there’s obviously a disconnect somewhere in our inability to convince or encourage people to be involved. We have heard from some of the communities what some of the barriers are. Chief, council members and community members are

concerned about the financial legal requirements that communities may have to undertake. Many people are related in smaller communities and potential conflicts of interest exist. We have continual turnover in electoral leadership impacting communities’ priority areas and investments, limited personal and community knowledge and understanding of the current child and family services system. People are nervous and that seems to be the feedback that we’re getting.

I think people believe in the intent but don’t necessarily believe in the structure. I think it’s time that all of us sat down and had a conversation about how do we get back to the intent – maybe the model we’ve chosen is not appropriate – and how do we get back to where we wanted to be, which is that communities have involvement in ensuring that children from their communities stay in their communities as far as is reasonable and safe to do so. Maybe we should start looking at interagency committees as one option.

I think it’s time that we need to rethink this particular structure that we’ve created by legislation because it does not seem to be meeting the need, although the intent is sound. I’d like to get back to the intent and find a new model that works.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. I’d just like to advise witnesses if they could just tighten up their responses just a little bit. Thank you. Ms. Bisaro.